At the recent SDR Forum, Texas Instruments Inc., along with its development partners Xilinx, Lyrtech and other third parties, unveiled a small form factor software-defined radio (SDR) development platform. A single integrated environment, it provides the entire signal chain hardware from antenna to baseband as well as software development tools With this kit, developers can easily design waveforms as well as create and test single or multi-protocol radios for applications in military, public safety, commercial, professional mobile radio (PMR) and land mobile radio (LMR) communication systems, including RFID readers. Additionally, as the platform is integrated to work with Simulink model-based design tool, developers have the option to use C/HDL or MATLAB Simulink to quickly test proof-of-concept designs and then optimize the architecture for cost and power.

Unlike other SDR development offerings in the market, the SDR development platform is a hardware/software co-development environment that supplies the full signal chain for a multi-protocol SDR, including RF front-end module, analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog data conversion module and digital processing module. By separating out the baseband, IF, and RF as distinct modules rather than as a single fixed architecture, developers are able to extend their radio development capabilities, as well as optimize for cost and power consumption, by substituting their own or third-party modules. This flexibility is vital, as it gives developers the ability to adjust their products around the industry’s constantly varying requirements, said TI.

The digital processing module capitalizes on the performance and architecture benefits of TMS320DM6446 system-on-a-chip (SoC) comprised of TMS320CC64x digital signal processor (DSP) core and an ARM9 general-purpose processor. The high-performance DSP core streamlines complex signal processing, while the GPP supports network and application processing. Plus, the DM6446 SoC comes complete with a full set of peripherals necessary for SDR, including serial ports, USB and Ethernet connections and DDR2 and NAND flash memory. The module also comes with a Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA for modem co-processing and acceleration functions. .

The data conversion module includes two ADS5500 ADCs, offering 14-bits performance at 125 Msps and one DAC5687, a 16-bit dual channel DAC with 500 Msps.. The standard RF module included in the kit covers from 360 MHz to 960 MHz with a selectable 5 MHz or 20 MHz bandwidth, supporting a wide range of applications. The platform also uses TI’s MSP430 ultra low power MCU and power management technology.

Lyrtech developed the hardware for the platform and integrated all of the software components of the kit. Green Hills' Integrity real-time operating system running on the ARM provides an environment for implementing higher layers of radio protocols. Objective Interface Systems (OIS) is supplying the Object Request Broker (ORB) middleware for the ARM9, the DSP, and FPGA for the SCA version of the platform. The ORB middleware substantially reduces development complexity and enables algorithm code portability. The Communications Research Centre of Canada (CRC) supplies the Software Communications Architecture (SCA) core framework, as per version 2.2, that enables flexible implementation of different waveforms and protocols. According to TI, full reference design specs, as well as a complete bill-of-materials (BOM), will be available to developers.

TI's SDR development platform

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